SwissBorg CEO blames $41M loss on staking partner Kiln

SwissBorg CEO Cyrus Fazel denies that hackers breached his wealth management firm to steal $41 million, instead blaming the exploit on an external DeFi wallet held by its SOL staking partner Kiln. 

The theft, which was first reported by crypto sleuth ZachXBT on Monday, has already been compared by blockchain security specialist Chaofan Shou to the 2025 ByBit hack.

Shou noted that a week-old unstaking transaction gave the hacker withdrawal authority over the funds.  

The transaction unstaked over $200,000. 

Read more: DeFi default: Kinto shutdown prompts first haircut for Wildcat lenders

Kiln announced today that it has disabled various services on its staking platform, such as its “Kiln Dashboard, Widget and APIs,” until it resolves the ongoing security issue. 

“The Kiln team and several third-parties are continuing to thoroughly investigate this incident. We will continue to share any relevant information for customers here once we have it,” it said.

Crypto wallet firm Trust Wallet also noted its Earn features are currently unavailable “due to an ongoing issue with our partner Kiln’s API,” stressing that user funds held on Trust Wallet are still safe

The firm additionally distanced itself from the widespread supply chain attack that targeted and compromised node package manager libraries.

SwissBorg and Kiln updates still coming

SwissBorg is also still investigating the hack in which over 195,000 SOL, worth $41.5 million, was stolen. 

The firm originally responded by claiming its API partner was compromised and impacted its SOL earning program. It said it will utilize its SOL Treasury to fully compensate the 1% of SwissBorg users who were impacted.

Fazel noted in a stream that the incident was just “one bad day” in nine years of service. Earlier today, he stressed that his platform wasn’t hacked, and that “any gap in recovered funds will be covered.”

Beyond this, he noted that more updates will follow. He thanked various security firms, as well as ZachXBT, for their “immediate collaboration, vigilance, and support.”

It’s unclear who, or what entity, is behind the hack.

Protos has reached out to Kiln and SwissBorg for comment and will update this piece should we hear back.

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